The project 1000X embraces a mass-based system leveraging the dense network of members to create a dynamic relationship with light and visual connectivity between the interiority and exteriority.  The heavy, mass-based system stands as a critique of the contemporary use of dimensional wood members to create increasingly thin frames (walls) masked by ubiquitous sheet goods materials with high embodied energies. The standard off-the-shelf SPF dimensional lumber stacked assembly is connected with 2 ½” LignoLoc® compressed beech wooden nails.  The project was assembled without the use of metal fasteners, rods, or brackets, with a footprint of 10’-0” in width, 25’-0” in length, and 10’-0” in height.  The introduction of non-traditional building methods implemented under the auspices of embodied energy and material geographies offers aspiring architecture students new methods to address the increasing disparity between built artifacts and the environment.

The 2018 SummerFAB program with Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, Massachusetts, brought together high school-aged participants from around the world to engage in the fundamental principles of architecture under the pretext of thinking through making. The program culminated in a built project, 1000X, as a means to introduce the ‘affirmation of the real’ to architecture students through the act of making. The brevity of the design-build pedagogy–working with a four-week curriculum–requires clarity in learning objectives and precision in teaching design techniques.